I’m a full time web administrator for a community college in Pittsburg CA. I also have a little time left over to freelance so check through my gallery for some examples of my work. I love figuring out new ways of doing things and finding the best solution for my clients. I love teaching people what I know so they may learn the things I have learned from others. Have fun reading and don’t forget to comment!

Business cards and online galleries

Posted by on Mar 26, 2012 in All, Design Tips, Web Tips | 4 comments

Business cards and online galleries

Today I want to talk about two really cool sites – one for business cards and the other for online photo galleries.   The fist is moo.com. Hmm well the name doesn’t really say it’s all but their product says the rest! I had never heard of them before until I attended a wacom webinar where they were talking about making “portfolio in your pocket” using photoshop tips, a wacom tablet and the printfinity pack from moo.com. They aren’t your average business cards where you have the same image on every...

read more

Native plant sale in Pittsburg CA

Posted by on Mar 22, 2012 in Garden Stuff, Web Tips | 4 comments

Native plant sale in Pittsburg CA

If you’re looking for some California native plants the nature preserve at Los Medanos College (a certified schoolyard habitat) is having a plant sale on March 27 and 28th. If you aren’t sure what you’re looking for I developed a plant ID slideshow to help you know what is what. All photographs were taken and identified by the caretakers of the center. Click the image below to visit the website. Plants range from $1 –...

read more

Metal up your type

Posted by on Feb 13, 2012 in All, Design Tips, Featured, Web Tips | 3 comments

Metal up your type

The purpose of design is to communicate a message and therefore I believe special effects should be used only if there is a reason to use them. This means it’s probably rare that you’ll need to create metal type but as a designer you should know the concept of how to do it even if you’ll only do it once in your career. Above is an image of a banner I did for our college website to congratulate one of our star alumni who played in the Superbowl. To match the emblem for the Superbowl it called for some silver type. In addition...

read more

Excited about a new beta program!

Posted by on Jan 25, 2012 in Web Tips | 2 comments

I’ve signed up for beta access but don’t have my code yet. I gotta wait in line Typecast Beta Overview from Typecast on Vimeo.

read more

How to design a quick mobile website

Posted by on Jan 5, 2012 in All, Web Tips | 1 comment

How to design a quick mobile website

When designing your websites for multiple platforms it can be a time consuming challenge. Well I’ve been sounding like an add for Google lately but if you want to quickly get a mobile version of your site up and running then google sites has some templates that will get you started while you are taking your time to code the perfect mobile site. Here is one that I made for my parents business fairly quickly. It’s just the basic information you need if your visiting from a smart phone. It’s important to give the option if they...

read more

@font warning to watch your weight

Posted by on Dec 30, 2011 in Web Tips | 0 comments

I had to repost this link because  it’s too good to ignore. I have been posting lately about the use of Google web fonts. They are great because they are free but watch it if you decide to bold or italicize the the font face. Here is a link to Chris Coyiers public service announcement.

read more

Google web font plugin for Photoshop by WebINK

Posted by on Dec 28, 2011 in Design Tips, Featured, Web Tips | 3 comments

Google web font plugin for Photoshop by WebINK

A little while back I posted about free web fonts from Google and how I used them in a small project. I found a nifty free little plugin for plugin for Photoshop CS5 from WebINK that allows you design with Google web fonts right inside Photoshop CS5. First create an account with WebINK and download their plugin. Once downloaded you’ll activate it through Window > Extensions > Extensis. You will have to sign into your account. Once loaded you will get a list of all the premium WebINK fonts but you can switch and from the drop down...

read more

My review of the SF 2011 An Event Apart

Posted by on Dec 15, 2011 in Featured, Web Tips | 4 comments

My review of the SF 2011 An Event Apart

My random thoughts on the 2011 San Francisco An Event Apart that took place on December 12 – 14  First I have to say this is one of the best conferences I have ever been to but I am told from other attendees that the other An Event Apart conferences are always good. I guess this one was no exception. The conference was held at the Palace Hotel on Montgomery Street. December is such a lovely time to be in the city. Not only does the Palace Hotel have a gorgeous dining room when you first walk in but it currently has a very large...

read more

How to make an RSS feed with an easy subscribe link

Posted by on Nov 24, 2011 in Featured, Web Tips | 2 comments

How to make an RSS feed with an easy subscribe link

Getting content spread around! Making an RSS feed for my website seemed like a very simple concept but when I tried to find informaiton on it I ran into a lot of problems. It seemed like everything I tried didn’t work. Welcome to the world of web development! For a while I used google reader and shared static web pages through it using their RSS feed engine and then used feedburner to feed it back into our website. This allowed others to subscribe to our news section and know when we had new press releases. In October of 2011 sometime it...

read more

American Legion and Google web fonts

Posted by on Nov 10, 2011 in Featured, Web Tips | 2 comments

American Legion and Google web fonts

This week I did a little work for a local post of the American Legion Post 491. I am in the beginning stages with the client but thought appropriate to talk about right before Veterans Day tomorrow. This is the first time I have actually used Google web fonts. The welcome red header on this page and the subhead (H2) is provided by google web fonts. They have a pretty large variety of fonts you can choose from. I wanted to go this route because I wanted to match as close as possible the image header on the top of the page and yet still make...

read more